I know a lot of writers. They can weave stories and give you in-depth looks into the latest news but some of them can’t spell that well. And many of them, myself included, get mixed up in certain words or phrases. It can happen to the best of us and often does. I know it seems kind of boring to think about grammar these days in the time of the much overused apostrophe S for plurals (my pet peeve of late–there’s a large sign on my way home from town that says something like Quilt’s For Sale and I feel the urge to scream every time I see it) and when the spelling I see on Facebook makes me fear for the future of our world, but some people care about how they say things, even on the Internet and for you I have a great website.
When in doubt about the correct use of a word or phrase, I turn to Paul Brian’s Common Errors in English. It has saved me some embarrassment. I almost submitted a manuscript with someone having her brow furled. It didn’t seem right so I went to Common Errors in English and phew, that would have been silly because, as Brian points out in his furl/furrow entry, “If you can furl your brow you belong in a sideshow.” Even if you’re not too concerned about getting it right all the time, I bet if you go to his site, you will learn something you didn’t know before. If you do care about grammar and spelling, you should bookmark Common Errors in English as your go-to place when you’re just not sure.
